Design Process — Irish Inspiration

We can find inspiration by how the elements are used all around us. Engage ALL of your senses to detect them. When you eat a wonderful meal, you use taste, smell, touch, hearing, sight. You note the textures of the food and how they contrast. You see the items on the dish, how they are arrayed and relate to each other. The scents and tastes of each bite contrast and complement each other. You may note too much of one flavor — it is out of balance.

When you look for quilting inspiration, you might use a wonderful meal. See the beautiful photography on my friend Angie’s blog, The Novice Gardener. Who wouldn’t be inspired by the appearance and descriptions of her creations?

Or you might use a vacation. I was “thumbing” through some photos of a trip Jim and I took in 2011 to Ireland. Here’s a little inspiration from that trip. All photos by Jim Ruebush.

Funny you should write about this just about the same time I did. http://snarkyquilter.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/inspiration-in-my-junk-mail Other recent sources of inspiration for me: other people’s quilts, typewriter themed fabric, a memory of seeing the moon rise, colors on a plant. I try to keep a sketchbook, but it contains mostly photos and ads I’ve cut out.

Inspiration for me: rocks. Sounds goofy but I love them. BIG rocks, especially. Mountain sized rocks, big boulders, boulders covered with lichen… I have to figure out how to represent them in a quilt. I have some ideas and now should just start trying things.

i get rocks, though I like canyon sized ones, preferably with lots of vertical fissures. Sounds like you may like rocks smoothed by water as well. You could do a close up of a lichen colony (do they call them that?) on a rock, though to work it might need to be really abstract. Or maybe a path through a traditional quilt pattern that could be the stream.

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